Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) is a powerful analytical technique for characterizing the thermal stability of the biological macromolecules.
DSC directly measures heat changes that occur in the sample solution during a precise increase or decrease of the temperature, analyzing a temperature difference between the sample and the reference cells.
By measuring the change of heat capacity (ΔCp) as a function of temperature, DSC allows the direct determination of the variations of enthalpy (ΔH), entropy (ΔS), and the mid-transition temperature (Tm, when 50% of the molecules are in unfolded state), associated to each structural transition.